Natasha Can't Keep Her Mouth Shut
by AmyCoolz
Summary: or "How Clint Finally Got His S**t Together With Coulson". Clint just needed someone to confide in, and he thought that Natasha would be able to keep his secret. The one time she doesn't, though, and it almost proved to be a disaster.


So I've seen _The Avengers_ four times in the theaters already. Yeah. Anyway, I just needed an excuse to write something cracky. It's Clint/Coulson, because apparently my brain won't let me let go of my obsession with this pairing. But they're oddly perfect for each other.

Anyway, like I said, it's a crack!fic. And it's unbeta'd, so any mistakes are my own. That being said, there shouldn't be many. XD

**Disclaimer: **I don't own these characters. They're all Marvel's, which is all Stan Lee's.

* * *

"We're friends, right?"

Natasha paused in roundhouse kicking a mannequin in favor of glancing at Clint. "Depends on how you define 'friendship' in our case," she said, finishing her routine and dislodging the wooden man's head; it flew to the other side of the room, landing on the floor with a dull _thud_ and then rolling off to the corner.

"I need someone I can confide in; there's something I need to get off my chest about someone we work with." He waited a beat then said, "You're good at keeping secrets."

"I am." She straightened up, unwrapped the cloth around her hands.

Clint decided that was all the invitation he was going to get, so he lowered his voice, leaned in and said, "I think I'm attracted to Agent Coulson."

The red-headed assassin blinked at him a few times before laughing quietly. "Join the club," was her only reply.

He scowled at her. "You could be a bit more supportive, you know."

"No, I really can't. But here's what I _can _do: tell you to suck it up and talk to him yourself."

"Yeah, 'cause _that's_ gonna happen." He dropped any further mention of the SHIELD agent as he turned to his own mannequin and resumed his close-combat training.

* * *

A week after their conversation, and Clint's subsequent ignorance of her advice, Natasha decided to take matters into her own hands. She knocked on the door to Coulson's office and invited herself in; she locked the door behind her.

"Agent Coulson…" she hesitated, wondering if this was going to ruin her friendship with Clint, then realized that she owed him a debt, and that this was going to more than make up for it. "We need to talk. It's about Agent Barton."

* * *

Clint was going to kill Natasha. He could do it. He could totally do it. She may be a master assassin, able to blend in and make herself nearly invisible, but he was a sniper, trained to wait long periods of time with no food or water until he struck his target. It would be easy, to perch outside her room and wait for her to either enter or exit; then he would strike.

But as it stood, Clint was currently across the desk from Agent Coulson, who merely stared at him with rapt curiosity. It was like looking into the eyes of statue, if statues' eyes actually had color and glinted in the sunlight and were actually _real_.

He cleared his throat and said, "You wanted to see me, sir?" for what had to be the sixth time already in as many minutes; it was hard to keep up with the tally now.

"Yes, Agent Barton. Please, sit."

That's when Clint realized that _holy shit, he had been standing this whole time and what if he had an erection, oh my god_. But he looked down at himself as he sat down and noted that no, thankfully, he did not have a raging hard-on, but he wouldn't be surprised if that turned out not to be the case in a few minutes.

"It's been brought to my attention that I seem to have a… fan club of sorts?"

Clint wanted to snort; 'fan club', indeed. He'd heard things being said around SHIELD, although he couldn't be certain if that wasn't just Natasha being sneaky and getting everyone to spread rumors. Because she could do that; she was scary enough.

"Sir?" He decided to play dumb. Maybe this would be over quicker.

"Don't 'sir' me. You know what I'm talking about, Barton." He sounded genuinely angry, and Clint was suddenly scared for his life. "What I want to know is who's at the top of this little organization?"

"I… I don't know, sir." Was he serious? Did he actually think there was a legitimate fan club for him, complete with clandestine meetings and hushed tales of his daily goings-about around headquarters? "I wasn't aware there was actually a _club_-"

"If there is, they are operating illegally." He rifled through one of the drawers behind his desk and came back with a stack of about 50 papers. "These are the forms they need to fill out to make it official in the eyes of SHIELD."

Clint took the papers without really thinking about it, and flipped through them. This was insane. He had to stop this madness right now.

"Look, there is no fan club. At least not one that I'm aware of having actually existed. I just… I may have mentioned to Agent Romanoff that I… maybesortahaveacrushonyou." He felt ridiculous. A crush? He wasn't in the fifth grade.

"A crush?" Clint groaned; of course Coulson caught that. The man caught everything. "You? On me?" Though, Clint had to give himself credit on that; he reduced Coulson to using one-syllable words. Huzzah.

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepishly at the ground. "Yeah, you know, I-" He huffed out a breath and stood up. "Never mind. It's stupid. I'll see you tomorrow, Agent Coulson."

He made a hasty retreat from his superior's office, ignoring the man's shouts for him to come back through the doors. Clint grabbed his stuff from his office space and headed home, all too eager for the chance to rest.

* * *

Clint never got that chance to rest. Almost as soon as he got to his apartment, took a shower, and was lying down in bed, there was a knock at his door. He groaned and took too long to answer the knocks still resounding through his apartment.

"_What_?" he hissed, swinging open the door, but immediately shut his mouth from anything else that might have spewed out as he saw who was standing on the other side. "Agent Coulson."

"Barton." He lowered his arm, which was still poised for knocking, back down to his side. "May I come in?"

"I was just heading to bed, Agent Coulson. Could it wait 'til the morning?" Clint could hold grudges like it was nobody's business, although he supposed he should be angry at Natasha, not at Coulson.

"No." There was no room for discussion in Coulson's tone, so Clint grit his teeth together and stepped aside to let the other agent into his home. "I wanted to talk to you about-"

Clint didn't want to hear the other man talk, so he grabbed him by the lapels on his suit jacket and shoved him against the wall, holding him close. "Agent Coulson, I know what you want to talk about, but I'm not really in a talking mood." He licked his lips and felt a flutter in his stomach as Coulson's eyes flitted down to watch his mouth. "You shouldn't have come."

"I know," Coulson breathed, shifting under Clint's gaze and hold.

"Then why did you?" They were closer now, less than a few inches apart.

"…To see if you were okay?" Coulson was fishing now. Did he feel the same way Clint felt about him? He must have, seeing as he came all the way to Clint's apartment; and it certainly wasn't to check in on his well-being.

"That's a load of crap." He chuckled, pressing his forehead against Coulson's. "So what now?"

"Well, now you have to fill out forms 22-3C and 49-8H, along with-"

Clint cut off Coulson's rambling with a well-placed kiss. "How about we skip the paperwork and head straight to the bedroom?"

Later he decided – after he and Coulson were thoroughly fucked and he was running his fingers through a sleeping Coulson's hair – that he could spare Natasha's life just this one time. After all, if she hadn't opened her big mouth, none of this would have happened.


End file.
